As the solid state drive (SSD) plays an increasingly important role in computer and enterprise storage, there is a correlated increase in importance and reliance on the use of backup power sources, such as supercapacitors, to help prevent data loss in the SSD from occurring due to power outage or power loss. This feature is generally referred to as power loss protection (PLP). When a power outage or power loss occurs for a host device, such as a computer, with an SSD, the energy stored by the supercapacitor provides backup power to ensure that all pending commands are successfully completed by the SSD, all critical data is saved, and the SSD can shut down properly.
In normal operation, the energy consumed by the non-volatile memory array (NVMA) in an SSD represents a large portion of the total energy consumed by the SSD. During a power outage or power loss, much of the energy that is drawn from the supercapacitor is used to power the entire NVMA. The need to maintain power for the entire NVMA through the duration of processing all of the pending commands by the SSD during the power outage or power loss situation stems from the general design and coding considerations for the SSD.
There is, therefore, an unmet demand for SSDs with PLP that makes more efficient use of the energy provided by the backup power source during a power outage or power loss situation.